No Longer In Me
by Grav
Summary: Grissom contemplates the ramifications of his actions, past and present. Post ep fpr Alter Boys


Disclaimer: CSI is owned by people other then me, which is too bad, because if I owned them, maybe I wouldn't owe the government so much money in the form of student loans.  
  
Spoilers: This is a post ep for Altar Boys, so season two give or take.  
  
A.N. I didn't mean to write this story. It's one of those that just comes, and since it stopped me from sleeping last night, I figured I should get rid of it before it drove me insane. Everything I know about Catholicism I learned from television, so forgive me if I am really off and/or outdated. Oh, and I am fabricating back story like there's no tomorrow.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
~No Longer In Me~  
  
He hadn't lied to the priest. Some things are erasable, despite whatever training one has had. Lying to priests wasn't one of them, and he hadn't.  
  
It was funny, the scientific part of his brain noted, that though it had been years since he had attended Mass, he found himself halfway to kneeling in the aisle upon exiting the pew before he remembered that he didn't do that any more, and had turned his back on the crucifix.  
  
Memory came to him.  
  
Another place.  
  
Another time.  
  
Another church.  
  
He had come by himself, having ridden his bike across town in the dark, and entered the one place that his mother had promised him would always be a sanctuary.  
  
It was quiet.  
  
It was always quiet, even when the organ was playing and the choir sang, it was always somehow quiet.  
  
He remembered the smell of the confessional.  
  
Remembered feeling claustrophobic.  
  
Remembered wishing he could see the priest's face.  
  
Remembered how it had broken his mother's heart when she was told that the priest would not look at her face to face so she could read his lips.  
  
She still went and confessed, and she never heard her absolution.  
  
He remembered reciting the lines, and waiting for the response, waiting for permission to lay all his troubles on a man of God he could not see.  
  
It came.  
  
And he told that his father hit his mother.  
  
Again.  
  
And that tonight, he had hit him back.  
  
Broken his nose.  
  
Got blood on the carpet.  
  
And his hands.  
  
The priest had been silent for a minute, and then reminded him to honour his father.  
  
He had asked what you do when your father doesn't deserve honour.  
  
The priest replied that fathers always deserve honour.  
  
He had left then. He didn't cross himself. He didn't thank the priest. He didn't do anything that he was supposed to.  
  
And he had never gone back.  
  
He refused to feel guilt for what he had done, even though he had not waited for his absolution.  
  
And he had never gone back.  
  
Until tonight.  
  
He sat in the pew, and waited for the priest to come down from the nave.  
  
They had spoken, but neither of them had really listened.  
  
That was the problem with the entire case.  
  
Part of him hated the fact that the priest was right.  
  
He could still remember his father's blood on his hands, feel the cartilage compress with a sickening crack that his mother never heard, and that he would hear until his dying day.  
  
But another part of him knew that he hadn't lied.  
  
That guilt was no longer in him.  
  
He had made his own absolution with no help from a priest, his hands had solved cases, saved lives, made a difference. Just tonight he had reached out to Sara, albeit absently, but he knew she would have recoiled if she could have sensed the blood that wasn't on his hands.  
  
Yet tonight he was angry and guilty again.  
  
All the priest had to do was tell the truth days ago, and an innocent man wouldn't be in jail. Oath be damned.  
  
Irony.  
  
That guilt was no longer in him.  
  
Catherine had said something about a sauna, and supporting Las Vegas.  
  
The same Las Vegas that was sending the wrong man to jail.  
  
As he waited for the phone call, he studied his hands.  
  
No blood. Just like he thought.  
  
And yet, sometimes, depending on the light, he thought he could see something there.  
  
Sometimes he wished Shakespeare had never been born.  
  
Or at least never written MacBeth.  
  
Out Damn Spot.  
  
There is no spot.  
  
Nothing to be ashamed of.  
  
Nothing.  
  
That guilt was no longer in him.  
  
A uniformed officer ran past the desk.  
  
Shouts.  
  
The church was quiet. Here it never was. Maybe that was why he preferred the lab.  
  
Another officer past through his line of sight.  
  
More shouts, more officers.  
  
This was getting ridiculous.  
  
The shouted words meandered around in his brain until they began to assemble themselves coherently.  
  
Blood.  
  
Teeth.  
  
Compression.  
  
Paramedics.  
  
Ben.  
  
He was running too now.  
  
Into the cell, he held the bleeding arm, and tried to staunch the flow.  
  
He was pushed out of the way by the paramedics, and retreated to the corner of the cell.  
  
He caught Ben's eyes.  
  
They didn't blame him, but offered instead a silent thank you for doing the best he could.  
  
Except he hadn't.  
  
And he knew it.  
  
But no one else did, because he would come back to work tomorrow and not have changed at all.  
  
Ben knew. The priest would know.  
  
He hoped suicides didn't go to Hell as he had been taught.  
  
He hoped that cruel brothers and fathers without honour did.  
  
He wondered what the priest would tell him now.  
  
The light in the eyes went out.  
  
The paramedics pronounced.  
  
He looked at his hands.  
  
This time, there was no mistaking the blood.  
  
Nor was their any mistaking his responsibility for its presence there.  
  
This time it was his fault.  
  
He hadn't lied to the priest.  
  
That guilt was no longer in him.  
  
But it was still on him.  
  
And it still burned.  
~fin~ A.N. Attempted to copy Anya's style. Have probably failed miserably. Imitation still highest form of flattery. R&R please. 


End file.
